Inmates don't give up their right to refuse medical treatment, especially unproven, off-label treatment like ivermectin for #COVID19, by virtue of being incarcerated. The men were told they were being given vitamins or steroids, and instead were given ivermectin from the doctor who wrote on his facebook page that he didn't believe in facemasks. The Arkansas Medical Board is investigating the jail physician who prescribed the medication, and the ACLU said that some inmates are prepared to file a lawsuit to stop it from being used at the facility.
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033586429/anti-parasite-drug-covid-19-ivermectin-washington-county-arkansas
@kravietz I see you are Polish living in the UK, so you may understand this quite well. A friend of mine who is a dual citizen (USA/France) and now lives in the USA explains to his relatives in France when they are baffled by what they hear in French media that the different states are like EU countries, each with their own culture and laws. There are federal laws that supersede state laws (which is quite different as the EU court and parliament doesn't have nearly as much power), but anything that is not specifically a federal power is left to the states to decide. No one should be experimenting on their prisoners though! But I'm a lot less surprised to hear that this is happening in Arkansas than I would be in Maryland or Massachusetts, because the states that voted for TFG correlate closely with beliefs that COVID isn't real or masks and vaccines don't work. In the northeast, we have high rates of vaccination and we wear masks.